The Colour Of Blood
by kajamiku
Summary: An invasion into the twisted, though highly interesting, psyche of Orochimaru. Oro POV. Tell me what you think, I live for feedback.


**The Colour of Blood:**

**Summary/Notes:** An invasion into the twisted, though highly interesting, psyche of Orochimaru.  
**Author:** kajamiku  
**Disclaimer:** Naruto doesn't belong to me... life sucks XD

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I can still remember it. I can still see it in my mind's eye, still feel the way I felt and shake the way I did back then.

I think I was about eleven. I can remember sitting in the aftermath and wondering how long it would take me to recover the feeling in my legs. How long it would take for the guilt to set in.

It's true; I didn't exactly feel guilty about it… simply slightly horrified at how much blood there had been. I thought my hands would be stained that morbid colour forever. It certainly didn't seem to fade for a long time.

I can remember sitting there and staring at my own hands, and then looking back to the boy in vague wonder. I questioned myself in the immediate moments afterwards, unsure whether I had really done it. Despite being in a reasonable frame of mind at the time, the whole event was rather hazy. I know he struck out at me. I know he struggled and fought to escape, yelling unfamiliar names into the dark.

I could never recall those names. They were just a side effect of what I was doing; it was the sight that I couldn't erase from my mind. The twisting of his limbs, the dilation of his pupils, the anguished expression he wore like a pale shroud. And in the first weeks I wished for nothing except the deletion of such violent and gruesome images.

That was how the second came about.

I wanted to erase the images I kept seeing; I wanted to escape and live in that moment when everything was reduced to a single second. A moment of clarity and calm, a moment when everything that had ever happened to me was suddenly insignificant and naïve.

Yes, that's what I think it was; naiveté. It happened once, and for some unknown reason, I thought that the second would replace the thoughts of the first. It was foolish and nonsensical; how I could have thought such a thing is completely unknown to me now.

And yet the second time, I wanted to make the whole scene more beautiful. I wanted to cover the old, piercing, rending memories with something better. A new masterpiece, so to speak. It wasn't art. Not really. I never thought of it that way. It was an escape, and then it was simply the way I lived.

The second one, the name evades me even now, asked me something I have always remembered. I can remember exactly how he was lying, sprawled on the damp grass and mud, his back nearing a tree, a barrier, a cage, one arm supporting his body as he crawled desperately backwards, the other held up to protect himself. His eyes were wide, his face pale and drawn, tensed with… fear? It looked more like an acknowledgment of what was going to happen. As if he knew exactly what I was thinking, and knew he could do absolutely nothing to stop it. They all have that to some degree. I've seen it so many times, I can recognise that same expression in anyone's eyes.

In that moment, all of them blur together. It's almost as if I can't tell one from the next. I can see all the faces where there should only be one. I am reminded of every single expression, every cry and scream and every strangled frantic plea.

It's different now. It no longer seems something so exceptional. The moment itself is, as always, beautiful and completely spellbinding, and I always feel that completion. I am always solaced in the knowledge that the beauty came from my hands. The 'art' was created from my own mind, and my own actions.

Then again, I always say that it is not art. And it isn't. Art is pointless. Art is a matter of opinions and senseless drivel; a beautiful thing faded by constant judgements and skewed critique. Why should we speak of or categorise something we long to hold? Something we wish to capture and keep, suspended in our memories for as long as we want it to be? No, it is not 'art'. Though that is, however, also a matter of opinion.

That boy though… I remember, in the midst of everything, he sobbed something that made me pause. They were questions that haunted my thoughts for a long time afterwards.

"Don't touch me! What are you, some kind of monster?"

It makes me smile to think of that, to summon up the images of him crawling backwards, slipping on the mud, sobbing and pleading with me to stop what I was doing. A monster…

Most of them ask me why I do such things, but he didn't; his immediate assumption was not that I was a human who needed questioning about his actions, but that I was probably beyond any questions he could ask; a monster who wouldn't listen to what he said, no matter what words he could conjure from his fear and panic.

Of course, in the beginning no one was there to question me. No one ever really suspected me of doing those things. Not really.

I think Tsunade was looking at me when we were publicly informed of the first death, but even then I knew she wouldn't say anything, even if she had her suspicions.

Jiraiya was as oblivious as ever, though I don't doubt that he would have been in denial about it even if he had noticed, even if he'd seen it. The idiot would never believe someone he knew would do something like that; not then.

Ironically, he now blames everything on me; every little incident he hears of immediately makes him think of me. Of course it usually _is_ me, but that is completely beside the point.

In our youth he was entirely too trusting; despite my absences and unbelievable excuses, he never worried about anything concerning me. I was innocent in his eyes.

Tsunade was always the more suspicious, but even she didn't say anything to me about it. I was never completely sure whether it was denial, if they simply did not want it to be me, or if I really was as untouchable as I felt at the time. No one said anything to me; as if they had immediately struck me from their list of suspects, innocent until the evidence falls into their laps, so to speak.

I let months elapse before I tried anything again. Not because I was worried or afraid of being caught, but because I felt slightly more at peace after that second time. The blood was washed away much more quickly.

It's so easy to fall in love with that colour. Eventually, it's so much a part of your everyday existence that it seems normal for your hands to look that shade. And I suppose, in my case, that's probably quite fortunate.

It's a compelling thing; enthralling, and unbelievably addictive. Yes, the first time is always the worst; it is in those moments that you question yourself, that you wonder why your reaction to purposeful slaughter is different from the people around you. You walk through the streets, looking at every person and wonder which of them would feel the same. Which one of these seemingly immaterial beings would think in the same way as you, when their hands were saturated with blood, as yours were?

As a shinobi, death becomes a part of your existence. You live with the fact that you might die or have to kill at any time. But there is something different, something crucial and significant, between killing on a mission, for your living and your life, and just killing.

That difference? Justification, of course.

Killing on a mission is justified; you're protecting yourself or your comrades, or you're disposing of a person who does not deserve the air he breathes. Someone disreputable, someone 'evil'.

Evil… it is simply a word. But what a word! It can incite such emotion in people; such fierce protectiveness over those who use it to describe someone else. In my youth I could have turned around, pointed to someone at random and declared them evil; they would probably have been jailed or executed, had I provided a little falsified evidence. It's something so unforgivable.

Actually, I'm rather surprised I didn't do such a thing; perhaps I should have, it would have entertained me to see the reaction of those usually peaceful citizens, turning on one of their own, innocent as they were.

Murder, as well as blood, is seductive.

Saying it is so completely different to seeing it first hand. I can say quite without regret, that I found killing seductive when I was young. It is simply the way I live now of course, but when I was young, when I was working through my meagre years and trying to understand myself, I became quite captivated with the entire concept.

In those days, I was what Jiraiya termed as a 'book worm' and spent much of my time pouring over books and jutsu scrolls. However, some of that time was not spent reading. I would stare at the paper in front of me with rapture, and see old images play across it; dancing temptingly before my eyes and obscuring the text beneath.

I have seen this utter fascination with killing in others too; I have managed to turn some of the most innocent… No, I suppose there is not much challenge to that. As amusing, as endearing as it is to see, I cannot truly say that I find such conversions a challenge anymore. It is one of the most breathtaking things to watch; an innocent becoming a killer, but this does not go any way to proving my point.

The challenge comes when someone is set in their ways. When their every action is scrutinised fretfully by their conscience, and even the suggestion of going against such beliefs turns them pale.

I love people like that. They're always the most fun to play with, to torment. The problem with the way they live, judging everything on those conscience-ridden beliefs, is that the rules are not finite. The lines blur, and some well-spoken words can often convince them.

I like to do that, to twist their beliefs to fit whatever purpose I have for them. As long as it sounds plausible, as long as it fits with the strongly worded, though often ambiguous, rules they have set forth for themselves; they can be manipulated very easily.

Kabuto once commented that I play with people as I play chess. It's probably true; I treat the pieces on a chessboard with about the same regard as most people, after all. And, amusingly enough, I've never lost a game in my life.

The control one has over chess pieces is profoundly like the control one can have over those he manipulates. The key difference, of course, is that real people are so much more interesting than the black and white marble. They have a conscience and free will, to an extent at least, which makes the game much more challenging, and a good deal more intricate. However, some people can play chess well, but they wouldn't be able to handle the control that I have. The liberties I live.

The ability to tell a person to kill someone else, and to have them obey, is one of the most disturbing and thrilling things one can experience. There is some sort of heated pride, a feeling not unlike the sensation of blood on one's hands, associated with the idea. It heats the surface of your skin, and gives a heady feeling. That is the product of your effort. Your creation in an old shell. The one you have manipulated becomes nothing more than a pet; a creature to play with when it takes your fancy, and to watch as their own actions drive them insane.

Some of these reformed creatures kill themselves. It is inevitable; some just cannot handle the guilt, and the stress that overwhelms them. Some become nothing more than hollow facades; walking, talking zombies with little to no will. Others continue due to their addiction, and others rationalise and rationalise until the only stable thing in their mind is their manipulator. Those are the mindless puppets. They have no will of their own, but are perfect for a puppeteer like myself. They are unbelievably boring however; and I have never liked to surround myself with such beings, as fitting as they are for some purposes.

Yes, justification… Murder is not justified in the favoured moral sense of the word; even if there is a reason, that reason must be weighed on the moral scales of the public before it can be accepted. It takes a group of people to create such a moral standard, and then the sheep-minded people who follow them reinforce the beliefs.

I cannot argue against this; in truth, it could be said that I have done exactly the same thing. The only difference is that my sense of morality opposes the more popular ethics in the world. My following, for lack of a better term, is smaller than the ones in power. Minority causes many problems.

My first experiences of killing were fraught with moral oppositions and complications. Despite a noticeable lack of real guilt, I still considered my objectionable behaviour carefully; even if I thought my explorations into the unknown were justified, I was fully aware that the people who surrounded me would not. For this reason, and this reason alone, I kept my exploits to myself. Being jailed or executed would, after all, mean I could not explore this further. It would also halt the considerations and experiments I had already begun.

In my experience, there are things you simply should not talk about with some people. Frivolous deaths in front of teachers like Sarutobi-sensei, for instance. He had firm rules regarding his own morality, and one of the things he always impressed upon us were the regulations regarding missions and the death of targets. It is true that there is a ninja guideline forcing us into an unemotional mask, but it is also true that we are only human.

Tsunade cried the first time she killed someone. Jiraiya was unmistakably subdued for days. This was when I realised I was more different from them than I had originally thought.

I was Sarutobi-sensei's favourite. That probably made it worse for him when he realised how little of me he actually knew. Betraying his trust, I felt somehow accomplished; that I had surprised him so much was satisfying. The fact that he couldn't kill me gave me a superior feeling; hadn't he, after all, always said that being a shinobi was to become emotionless in the face of battle? Seeing how much of a hypocrite he was seemed a betrayal of me, in some small way.

A betrayal of all of us; his students.

Of course, this meant very little later; but I felt it at the time. It was disappointment that my teacher was not as great as I had thought.

To be fair, it was not Sarutobi-sensei alone. Most of the people of Konoha are surprisingly blind towards their own; 'turning a blind eye' has never applied to anywhere more than the Hidden Leaf. They seem to believe that since someone is born into their Village, they are a part of their system.

A part of their 'family'.

It never fails to surprise them when someone turns traitor, no matter how many times it might happen. And I know it will happen again.

I will not be the last to taste the sweetness of death, and know its value. Not the last by any means. Konoha will have its traitors, and if the citizens are lucky they might learn from them.

If my first experiences with death were anything to judge by, I know that useful chess pieces will never be difficult to find.

The colour of blood is much darker than most people realise.


End file.
